


Accept, Have Faith, Let Go

by bluflamingo



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Kneeling, M/M, Past Kent Parson/Jack Zimmermann, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 12:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15267459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be.Kent's first few months with the Aces.





	Accept, Have Faith, Let Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maeve_of_Winter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maeve_of_Winter/gifts).



> maeve gave me so many great prompts to go on, and I sort of combined an AU where it's a thing for new players to kneel for older ones with a vaguely Dom/sub AU - I hope it works for you, maeve!

Swoops is the first one to offer, after practice three days before the pre-season starts.

It's not like Kent wasn't expecting it – everyone knew either he or Jack would go first in the draft, so the Aces and the Islanders both talked a lot to the two of them, and the Aces in particular stressed how well they were set up to support a player "in his circumstances." Though that was before Jack, and no-one's even mentioned him since the Islanders picked Tavares while Jack was still unconscious in a hospital bed.

Swoops is really careful about it, waits till the locker room's empty and sits in the stall next to Kent's, doesn't touch, just makes the offer quietly.

Kent still starts crying. He's been in Vegas for weeks, is almost resigned now to the way he just starts crying sometimes, but it's never happened in front of one of the team, not even Red who he's living with. He scrubs at the tears and tries to hold his breath against the way he wants to sob. He can't even look at Swoops, who must think – whatever it is that they all think about their new baby sub team-mate who they maybe didn't even think would end up one of them. Kent tries not to think about it, though he's only marginally more successful than he is at not thinking about Jack.

"It's okay," Swoops says softly. He passes Kent a handful of Kleenex and still doesn't touch him. "It's all right if you don't want to, or you don't want to with me. I know someone talked to you about that."

"It's not –" Kent manages, before he has to stop and breathe. He doesn't know any of the Aces all that well, though he knows that he's the only sub on the team, since DuClair retired at the end of last season, and they've all been nice to him, for all that he's basically a monosyllabic wreck with a good slapshot right now. There's a couple of exceptions though, and Swoops is one of them, hanging around after practice when Kent stays on the ice and sticking next to him when the team goes out for lunch or drinks. He's a nice guy, as well as being nice to look at, and if Kent was asked to pick, he'd be in the top of the list.

"Sorry." He scrubs at his face again, feeling small and stupid and alone. He wants Jack, but Jack hasn't answered his calls or texts since the morning after the draft. "Sorry, I'm just…" He doesn't know how to explain, sure that everyone thinks they know what was going on with him and Jack and just as sure that he doesn't even know that, not any more.

He wishes Swoops would hold his hand. 

"I'm sorry too," Swoops says. "I didn't mean to upset you. If you want to talk, I'm here."

Kent shakes his head firmly, taking a deep breath so he can get a whole sentence out. "You can ask again."

He can't look at Swoops' face, but he thinks he hears a little bit of a smile in his voice when Swoops says, "Okay."

*

Swoops doesn't offer again, all the way through the pre-season, and no-one else does either.

It's weird: back in the Q, Kent was the one who talked to people, who made friends. He and Jack would whisper together in the dark about the things they didn't understand, that didn't make sense, and then they'd figure out who to ask, and Kent would do it. Everyone knew he was a sub, everyone figured he had to be kneeling for Jack, but Kent was still the one who talked for them both.

"You doing okay?" Red asks one morning on the drive into practice. Kent likes it, the routine and the way he feels safe inside Red's SUV, like nothing and no-one can touch him, not even the ridiculously constant Vegas heat. He likes that it's Red too, older and married and a D-man, solid and reliable and safe.

None of which changes how Kent sometimes still winds up hunched in on himself against the passenger window. "Yeah." He makes an effort to uncurl himself and actually look at Red, who's focused on the road. "Sorry. I didn't sleep well."

"You want to talk about it?"

Kent didn't sleep well because Bob Zimmermann texted and asked him to stop trying to contact Jack, at least for a while, and didn't answer when Kent asked if Jack's okay. "No, thanks."

"Okay," Red says easily, and spends the rest of the drive to the rink humming along to the classic rock playing on the car radio.

"Hey," he says as they're walking into the rink, "You want a hug?"

Kent still feels shaky from Bob's message, over-tired and twitchy, and he honestly has no idea whether a hug will make it better or worse. Whichever it is, he can't risk it. "No. But thanks."

Red nudges his shoulder for a second. "No problem."

*

The day before Kent's first ever real NHL game, Swoops circles the ice a couple of times at the end of practice while Kent takes shots from the blue line. He blames that distraction for how he doesn't realize Swoops is waiting for the others to clear out until Swoops skates close enough for Kent to pay attention. "Hey," Kent says, tapping the puck gently to Swoops, who holds it on his stick.

"I want to ask you to come over to my place for the afternoon." Swoops doesn't send the puck back, stays just far enough away that he can't touch Kent without moving. 

"I'm good," Kent says, too surprised to come up with a good excuse. 

"Kent," Swoops says softly. "This is me offering again, okay? We all got a refresher seminar when we found out we were getting you. I wanted to help you – I want to help you."

It's easier once Kent knows Swoops is offering for the team, not… For something else. 

"We can just go to mine, eat something, maybe play some video games." Swoops keeps his voice soft, like he can see how tense Kent is, how uncertain. "It can just be that, if you want."

Swoops will have talked to Red about offering, probably, which means Red will maybe ask questions if Kent turns back up at the house, either of Kent or, worse, of Swoops. They won't – Kent knows it would still be okay, but he just… He wants to say yes. "Okay," he says, just as soft as Swoops. "Sure, okay."

They take Swoops' convertible. He keeps the roof up, and Kent finds himself watching Swoops' hands on the wheel. He's always had kind of a thing for men's hands, loves the moments he gets to watch people who are really good at hockey handle their sticks in bare hands, used to get a little shivery when gloves were dropped, once he joined a league that allowed fighting. Swoops has really good hands, strong and capable, and Kent wants to press his mouth to the gentle curve of his wrist.

"I've got leftover pasta for lunch," Swoops says as he lets them into his apartment. Kent's been there a couple of times before, always with the team – it's a small place, but Swoops keeps it tidy, and it has the kind of big windows that make it seem more spacious than it is. "Can you get us something to drink? There's Gatorade, or I think I still have juice, whichever you want."

They sit at the table to eat, Swoops talking idly about his first NHL game as a call-up, midway through his second year after the draft. Kent doesn't say much, but he also doesn't miss the way Swoops carefully assures him that everyone is nervous at their first game, stresses that Swoops stayed up with the team until the end of the season, despite not putting up any points in his first three games. 

"My plan was to sit and read for a bit," Swoops says as they're filling the dishwasher. "I'm reading a really good book about world war two spies, and this is my last chance to focus on it for a while."

"Okay," Kent says quietly, forcing himself not to think about Jack, who'd probably love that book. 

"Would you like to kneel while I read?"

Maybe because he's thinking about Jack, how they used to do that before big games, or maybe just because Swoops is right, and Kent is nervous, it feels almost easy to nod his head and follow Swoops to the couch.

Swoops has a throw pillow with the Aces logo on the floor in front of the couch. It looks new, and it gives a little too much when Kent folds himself down. There's a moment, after Swoops takes out his book, that Kent thinks he won't be able to do it, it's too weird, it's too much like with Jack, too different from with Jack. Then Swoops says, "Take your time," and some of the tension eases.

It still takes Kent maybe five minutes to convince himself it's okay to rest his head on Swoops' knee, very lightly. Swoops doesn't say anything, just runs his fingers once over Kent's scalp. Kent shivers a little, glad when Swoops doesn't do it again. He hears a page turn and closes his eyes. 

He and Jack didn't sit like this much after their first few months together. Jack would sit on the floor, legs stretched out in front of him, and Kent would curl up with his head on Jack's thigh, like a cat. Sometimes Jack would just rest his hand on Kent's shoulder; sometimes he'd pet Kent's hair, or read to him. Whichever it was, Kent would wrap one hand around Jack's ankle, holding on so Jack knew that Kent wanted him there. So Jack had to ask if he wanted to move away.

He curls his hands into his lap, keeping his eyes closed, and breathes. Swoops is wearing jeans, the denim a familiar feeling against his cheek. He turns another page, hums softly to himself. Kent thinks about asking him to read out loud, the way he sometimes asked Jack. He would, probably, but even Kent knows there's a difference between offering to let a team-mate kneel and doing stuff like that. That's for real relationships.

Swoops touches his head again, a quick pass of fingers over Kent's hair. He did this with Jack, when they first got to Montreal for the draft. Jack looked really tired, but he sat on the edge of the bed and held out a hand for Kent. They'd done that enough times that Kent hadn't even asked, just gone to his knees between Jack's legs, rested his head on Jack's thigh and let Jack mess up his hair. He sucked Jack off, after, and Jack seemed like he wasn't so tired. It still hadn't seemed weird when Jack said he wanted an early night instead of hanging out with some of the other draftees from the Q, and that Kent should go without him.

Kent shivers with the memory. It's hard to get his eyes open, and the sun's clearly moved around the room. 

"How you doing?" Swoops asks quietly.

Kent shivers again, fear in his stomach and tears catching in his throat. This can't be what Swoops signed up for, offering to bring Kent home. 

He sits back, ignoring how off-balance he feels without Swoops to lean against. "I should go," he says, and doesn't look at Swoops once as he gets himself out of the apartment.

*

Kent doesn't score, but he gets two assists, one of them on a rare goal from Red, who whoops and grins like they just made the playoffs. He throws his arms around Starsy, his D-partner, hugs the rest of their line, the crowd cheering because the whole of Vegas hockey loves Red.

It's hard to tell under his helmet, but Kent thinks Red's smile softens as he gets closer. He holds out a fist for Kent to bump, then drops his head to knock their helmets together, but he doesn't touch – doesn't hug.

"Let me know if your answer changes," he says, skating away before Kent can come up with anything to say.

*

Swoops keeps offering, and Kent keeps saying yes, and they keep scoring, even though it's not always enough for them to keep winning. Kent makes himself think about other things when he's on his knees – the next team they'll be up against, the plays from practice, the tabby cat that comes into Red's backyard in the evenings. 

The thing is though: the thing is that they always do it at Swoops' place, never at Red's, never in hotel rooms. Kent doesn't really think about it, not until he's in Swoops' car the day before they play Seattle at the start of a three game home-stand, and Swoops says, "Shit, I forgot to tell you – I'm still in the hotel."

Kent remembers, of course, Swoops turning up late for practice at the start of the week, because his upstairs neighbours left the bath running and collapsed Swoops' kitchen ceiling. He just hadn't thought about whether or not it's been fixed so Swoops can go back, and apparently, neither has Swoops.

"We don't have to," Swoops says. He's concentrating on the traffic, but the glances he keeps shooting Kent are worried. Bizarrely, it makes Kent feel a little better – Swoops always seems like he knows what he's doing, and it's kind of reassuring to know that's not always true.

"I…" Kent likes kneeling for Swoops. It does help, even if he sometimes struggles to pull his thoughts away from how he used to do it with Jack, and, after the first time, he hasn't said no, hasn't really even thought about saying no. It's gotten to be habit, kind of, something they do before most games. "We could try?"

Nobody pays them any attention as they make their way up to Swoops' room, and then they're through the door into a space that looks like every hotel room they've stayed in on the road. 

As in: no armchair or couch.

"Oh," Swoops says, clearly noticing it at the same moment Kent does and hesitating a little way into the room. "I could take the desk chair?"

It's the classic hotel-room one-step-up-from-a-wooden chair, and part of what Kent likes is the feeling that Swoops is comfortable, doing his own thing while Kent kneels. "It's okay for you to sit on the bed," he says, unsure whether that's really true.

Swoops, thank God, doesn't ask, just toes off his shoes and sits, dropping a pillow at his feet. "Would you like to kneel?" he asks, like he always does.

Kent goes down instead of answering, resting his head on Swoops' knee the way he always does and closing his eyes. Swoops is wearing sweatpants, not jeans like he usually does, soft and unfamiliar under Kent's cheek. Kent knew the NHL would be hard work, but he's been getting progressively more tired as the season goes on, and today is no different. It's too easy to drift, takes more effort than he can manage to keep his thoughts on safe topics, especially when Swoops pets his hair a little.

It's weird to be on his knees in a hotel room, weird to be doing it like this in a space where he normally doesn't any more. With his eyes closed, it's hard to remember that he's kneeling, not curled on the floor; that the hand still petting his hair isn't Jack's. He slides a hand around Swoops' ankle, thumb slipping under the leg of his sweatpants to press into warm skin. No-one says anything, and the hand in his hair keeps petting softly. It's nice, something he hasn't had in a while. He can feel his focus narrowing down to just that touch, and he's too tired to fight it.

He can't remember the trip to the hotel, which is weird – he remembers being at practice, and following someone into the hotel room, but he doesn't remember the bus ride. They're playing – Seattle? He thinks Seattle, though that doesn't make sense. Maybe Shawinigan, then. Kent can't remember the last time they played each other.

He makes a little questioning noise, then again when there's no reply. It's routine now, to ask without words and get back a soft spoken run-down of who they're playing, home or away, the other team's roster and sometimes details of their standings in comparison to each other. It's comforting to feel like someone else is keeping track, like they'll remind Kent if he drifts too far away to know for himself. 

"Jack?" he asks, and immediately knows that's wrong. He wouldn't be kneeling like this for Jack, and Jack wouldn't have forgotten what Kent means when he asks while he's down and –

And Jack isn't here, because Jack took too many pills, Jack got scared and didn't know he could go to Kent, or maybe didn't know how to ask for Kent, so Jack's not here and Kent is and he knew he wasn't going to be able to carry on the same with Jack after the draft, but he thought Jack would still _be there_ -

"Whoa, hey." Everything shifts, and then Kent's being pulled into someone's arms, hugged close and tight. He thinks it's Red, for a second, flashing back to that moment of him asking in the parking lot. Kent was right to think of it as a risk – having someone hold onto him makes him shake harder, his throat too tight to even cry, though his whole body burns with wanting to. 

"Just breathe, I've got you." A hand on the back of his neck, an arm tight around his waist, a solid shoulder under his cheek and the faint smell of the bodywash Aces' staff leaves in the locker room showers when Kent manages a breath. He's got his own hands fisted into someone's hoodie, thick and soft against his fingers.

It's Swoops. He knows, now, it's Swoops, not Red, not Jack, and Kent makes a terrible noise, horror and pain like coming back to try once more to talk Jack into coming out with him and –

"Jack," he sobs out, though he manages to bite back all the other words that want to follow that, the way he wants to plead for Jack to be okay, to just talk to him, Jack please, I need you, don't leave me, Jack, please…

"Open your eyes," Swoops says, low and firm. He draws back, one hand still on the back of Kent's neck. "Kent, come on, open your eyes and look at me."

When Kent manages it, everything is blurred with tears. He can still see how worried Swoops is – how freaked out. That just makes the tears spill faster, that he's gone so far past what Swoops was offering. Not that it helps, when he can barely breathe, let alone speak.

"That's it," Swoops says, still quiet. "Give me your hand." Kent does, keeping the other fisted in Swoops' hoodie. Swoops' hand feels hot in his, but he holds on just as tight as Kent does. "That's it, you're doing good. That's all you have to do. Just keep your eyes open and hold my hand. That's all."

Kent doesn’t have a free hand to wipe his face, afraid of what will happen if he lets go, so he just sits there, not quite making eye contact with Swoops, and cries, feeling stupid. He knows Jack's okay – Bob and Alicia made a statement at the weekend, asking for privacy, and Bob even texted Kent to say that Jack's getting better. He just can't shake the memory of Jack on the bathroom floor, any more than he can shake off the way he aches for Jack to be the one he's kneeling for. In that moment, he thinks that he'd give up everything with the Aces, every moment since the draft and every moment he'll ever have in the NHL, if it meant he could have Jack back.

"Hey," Swoops says softly, and then there's a hand wiping Kent's eyes. "There you go." He wipes Kent's face again, this time with the soft cuff of his hoodie. "Do you think you could take a deeper breath for me?"

Kent does it without even thinking, conditioned by every time he sat with Jack, _Breathe with me, I'm not going anywhere_ , and then it's easier to keep doing it. 

"That's it. Can I give you anther hug?"

"Please," Kent says, his voice wobbling really badly. Swoops cups the back of Kent's head, letting him press his still damp face against Swoops' shoulder. "Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for," Swoops says, instant and firm enough that even Kent's messed up emotions believe him. "The counsellor said that sometimes this happens, when you're kneeling. That it can trigger stuff you didn't even know was there." Kent shivers, and Swoops says, "Except I think maybe in your case it triggered something that needed to come out."

Kent sobs a bit, hating that Swoops is right, and hating that it's there at all. 

They're still holding hands; Swoops squeezes Kent's. "I don't know if you want to tell someone, or if you want to tell me, but if you do, I'm here to listen. I'm your friend, or at least I want to be. I hope I am. I think maybe it would help, because, Kent, you seem so unhappy right now."

"I miss Jack," Kent says. He focusses on how Swoops is holding his hand and closes his eyes against Swoops' shoulder. 

"I know. It sounds like you both had a really hard time."

"Maybe." It's as close as Kent feels like he can safely get to agreement, when he's not the one who nearly died. He's not even the one who could help Jack, in the end. "I should have – I messed up."

"You're eighteen years old," Swoops says, right in his ear. "It wasn't on you to rescue him."

"You don't even know what happened."

"That's true, but I still know it wasn't your job to rescue him." Swoops must feel how tense Kent has gone, because he says, "And I'd still say that, even if you did tell me."

Kent pulls together all the scraps of courage he used to put on a suit and smile at the draft when he didn't know if Jack was going to live or die. "Can I?" he asks, so soft he's not sure Swoops can even hear him. 

"Always," Jeff says. He holds Kent's hand through the whole story, hugs him when he starts crying again, and when he says, "It still wasn't your job to rescue him," Kent almost, almost believes him.


End file.
